He
once asked his son to help him; the younger Alexandre declined. "It
is worth a thousand a year, and you have only to make objections,"
the sire urged; but the son was not to be tempted. Some excellent
novelists of to-day would be much better if they employed a friend
to make objections. But, as a rule, the collaborator did much more.
Dumas' method, apparently, was first to talk the subject over with
his aide-de-camp. This is an excellent practice, as ideas are
knocked out, like sparks (an elderly illustration!), by the contact
of minds. Then the young man probably made researches, put a rough
sketch on paper, and supplied Dumas, as it were, with his "brief."
Then Dumas took the "brief" and wrote the novel. He gave it life,
he gave it the spark (l'etincelle); and the story lived and moved.
It is true that he "took his own where he found it," like Molere and
that he took a good deal. In the gallery of an old country-house,
on a wet day, I came once on the "Memoires" of D'Artagnan, where
they had lain since the family bought them in Queen Anne's time.
There were our old friends the Musketeers, and there were many of
their adventures, told at great length and breadth. But how much
more vivacious they are in Dumas! M. About repeats a story of
Dumas and his ways of work. He met the great man at Marseilles,
where, indeed, Alexandre chanced to be "on with the new love" before
being completely "off with the old.
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